Studies in Iconology: Humanistic Themes in the Art of the Renaissance Book

By Gods in heaven I want to shelve this book in psychoanalysis shelf! This is the application of the methodology of Interpretation of Dreams in Art History at its finest. That alone says more than enough ' not that I'm implying Panofsky was indebted to psychoanalysis methods, though, it's quite the other way around: this is how psychoanalysis should be applied to the study of Art. Freud himself would blush and agog if he were still alive when this book published.

Also, I do enjoy a book with some actual threads and plots that lead everything to a climax (last time I read a well-structured, story-telling, semi-detective-novel-like theoretical work was Leo Strauss' What is Political Philosophy, and before that Keith Thomas' Religion and the Decline of Magic, and ... that's it, I guess). Panofsky surprised me with his last essay on Michelangelo. He practices in his writing what he preaches.

What a glorious stunt. I would so want to be able to pull this stunt myself! Now that sounds familiar ...